Brenna's Trophy

Brenna's team did win the tier 3 provincial title and the team gets its name engraved on the base of a trophy. Also, each team member gets to have the trophy at their home for 2 weeks. Brenna made a 5 minute video about the trophy. You can play it from here: Trophy Video.

Note that the video may take 5 or 10 minutes to get started after going to the page and that it plays better in internet explorer than other browsers.

June... and a follow up from May

So the concert went really well. And Jazz cafe was a blast. For those of you who don't already know, Brenna's team are Ontario champions. Actually, her club won the award for the best club in Ontario this year too.

Now it's June. Today is my last day of school, although I am going to skip at least two periods. I will now explain my comment, as most of you probably don't understand. If I go to class, the maximum number of students in the class will be 3. All of the good kids are at home studying, and all of the other kids, well they skip on a regular basis anyways, they're not coming to the last day of school. Instead I will spend my day cleaning up the music room. YAY!!! I have a science exam tomorrow, a math exam on Wednesday, and a history exam on Thursday. I'm out of time, and I need to go catch the bus.

Thursday - The start of a crazy four days!

Yes, yes I know today is Wednesday, but I'm going to talk about Thursday. This weekend is tier championships, so Brenna is competing on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. She is attending a banquet on Thursday. I'm volunteering at the competition on Friday and Saturday.

Tomorrow is our end of year concert. I think it's going to go really well. The concert band will be performing as well as small ensembles. Although brass quintet won't be playing, Becky and I are going to play two french horn duets.

Friday is Jazz Cafe. This is the huge concert for jazz band, and we are really good this year. I think the concert is going to be really amazing.

Oops! Have to go.

All Star Band Concert

Wow! I thought it was really amazing. We played really well, and the audience enjoyed themselves. As scary as our conductor is, I really enjoyed being in her band. It was tons of fun!

7:16 am

Yes it's 7:16 am on a Wednesday morning. Well actually now it's 7:17... No I don't have to be getting ready for school, I have some free time. I don't have anything better to do, so I came to post something slightly interesting, but it will probably turn out really boring, and I might delete it later. Did you know that the world record for the most tennis balls held in the mouth by a dog is five? It was done by a golden retriever. It figures... Oops! I'm out of time. Got to go!

Easter Weekend

Happy Easter everyone!

Friday was a really nice day. We went outside and cleaned up. Brenna had swimming too.

Saturday I was sick. So I didn't go out caching in the morning. Actually, nobody did. We did pull the baby birds though. There is four of them and they're really cute. Their names are Lunger, Mo, Bo, and Book. We can't actually give them real names, but these are okay. Dad went out caching in the afternoon. Brenna had synchro again, and while Mom and her were out, some cachers came over to try X Never Marks the Spot, and then they watched Dad feed the baby birds.

Sunday morning we all lazed about. In the afternoon we went to Uncle Tom and Aunt Ruth's house for Easter supper. It was really good, and we had lots of fun playing Agricola. Agricola is a boardgame, where you run a family. Family members can work, but at the end of each harvest you have to be able to feed them all. You can have sheep, wild boars, and cows. It's a really fun game, especially if you're playing to have fun. not win. On that note. I won. With 28 points. (:P ← Jason!) Jason had 27 points, and for a few minutes we thought we were tied. Then I found another point. Uncle Tom had 26 points so he was really close too. Dad didn't do very well. He didn't get very good cards, and he was sitting on the wrong side of Uncle Tom and Jason. (I was sitting on the right side!)

Today is Monday. I am using it as a day to catch up. I have lots of homework and other such activities that I've been postponing. Today I am getting them all done.

Here is a silly quote that actually makes sense. Hmm...

"I am nobody
Nobody is perfect
Therefore, I must be perfect!"

Only slightly egotistical don't you think?

Update from before Easter

Wow! That was a while ago... Sorry. So anyways, in case you're wondering our jazz band got bronze. Brenna's team got first, and her duet was 5th. She will not be competing in duet for Tiers, but they got asked to preswim the competition. For those of you that don't know, preswimming is when they swim before the competition and they get marked. It's a warm up for the judges. Basically, it's like competing only you can't win.

Brenna also went to Kingston for a competition. Their team got 2nd overall, but they lost a team member after Regionals, so it's understandable. Her duet got 6th overall (5th in routine).

I'm in All Star Band this year. Our concert is on May 3rd if anyone wants to come out and see us. I play 4th french horn, and my section is really nice.

Friday

Today is Friday. Tonight, my jazz band will be performing at Capital Region Musicfest. I am pretty excited. Alison thinks we're going to do really well. This weekend is Brenna's synchro competition as well. She has duet, figures and team.

Busy Weekend

Twas a busy weekend. Stewart was performing in a musical (Once Upon A Mattress) -- the musical telling of story of the Princess and the Pea. He had rehearsals on wednesday/thursday and performances on friday, two on saturday and one on Sunday. The show went well and the combo pretty much had the music down by the last performance.

Meanwhile, Brenna had her entire synchro team over for a party on Saturday night / Sunday morning, so Kaitlin headed to sleepover at a friend's house to avoid the crowds.

Musicfest

Yesterday was Musicfest. The competition which tons of bands compete. Let me set this straight right now, you compete only against yourself. There are three judges who rate your performance; gold, silver, bronze or thank you for participating. Castor Valley played before us. I heard them, and I thought they did really well. They got a silver. (Good job Castor Valleyiens!) Then we played. Our march was good, but lacked the intense dynamics we had last year. Shenandoah was amazing! The horns played awesomely, I am so proud of my section! We rocked. Flashing Winds was okay. We've played it better... We got a bronze. I think that's pretty good but most of my band doesn't. I don't care, because we worked really hard to get there.

♫♪♫♪

Today was awesome!!!

First we went to Castor Valley, everything ran really smoothly, and the kids were pretty good. The band got really tired by the end though. It was lots of fun. We ended up having to stay at Castor Valley later then we planned too. I saw Brenna. Then we went to Metcalfe public.

Metcalfe was less on time, and lesss organized. Their students were louder, but that meant we got reactions from them. You should have heard the little kids when we brought the marimba up front! It was really cute how excited they got. Castor Valley didn't get that excited... :( Even though we were really tired, I think we played well.

Mom and I are leaving for camp tonight, after she gets back from dropping Brenna off at synchro.

♫♪♫♪

Thursday... One day left until the weekend!

So my Thursday wasn't very great. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't great. Brenna had a good day though. She had lots of fun at band. Her try out for the Grade 8 All Star Band is tonight. Actually that's where she is right now. I hope she's having fun.

I heard that the President stopped for a beavertail. I heard he got an Obamatail. I have never heard of those before! I haven't really been caring about getting a beavertail, but chocolate and whipped cream sounds really good.

Tomorrow we are going on a feeder school tour. Which means instead of going to class all day, I get to go play band music all day! I am so excited!!! Now tomorrow is looking pretty exciting. But... IT GETS BETTER!!! Oops. No more caps lock. Sorry. Sometimes caps are the only way to express myself on here. Anyways, so we are going to camp this weekend. Not only do I get to have a music filled day, I then get to have a blast of a weekend. And it doesn't end there. I get to clock all of it as community service hours. And I get to work with my Brownies. They are so adorable. and cute. and sweet. yeah. I love working with the Brownies.

But anyways, I might tell you all about it on Sunday. Or I might not, because I'll be so overloaded with homework! :)

Food for thought: QUOTE!!! (oops!)
"The cat could very well be man's best friend but would never stoop to admitting it." Doug Larson

Oops!

Oops! I left something out about the weekend. Mom went swimming too. Sorry Mom. :( I'll try to improve. Random thought for the day: Would you get along with yourself?

Awatto's Transit Strike

Well. Here is your daily dose of wierd stuff. This is a short story I wrote during the transit strike in Ottawa.

Once upon a time there was a village called Awatto. Since the villagers cared about the environment they didn’t buy those gas-guzzling, smoke-belching vehicles. They used horses instead. But the horses began to feel underappreciated. They weren’t getting any oats or carrots, and they certainly weren’t getting enough time to play. When they told the villagers this, for they were magic horses after all, the villagers said, “Nonsense. We feed you hay and grass and you get every night off.” But nighttime is for sleeping, and hay and grass don’t replace carrots and oats. The villagers refused to see this though, so the horses stopped working.

One morning, the horses wouldn’t be caught. The villagers appointed the head villager to work things out. But the head villager was allergic to carrots, so he refused to give the horses what they wanted. They talked and talked but they couldn’t compromise. After a week, several villagers bought gas-guzzling, smoke-belching vehicles. As time went by, more and more villagers joined them. The magical horses, who just wanted to save the planet from pollution, became desperate. They tried to talk some sense into the head villager, but he was very stubborn. After a month with no further progress, the horses got fed up. So they flew away. The rest of the villagers bought gas-guzzling, smoke-belching vehicles, and they did their part in destroying the planet.

Kaitlin Winter

I hope you liked it.

Kaitlin♫

Tremblant

Hello Everyone!

Yes. The winter family is back. No more shall you come to this web page and say, ugh! They still haven't updated... Which you've been doing for about a year. Kind of sad really, but for now I will try and stay on top of things. You can expect new posts on Monday, the occasional Thursday, and Friday, for now.

Today is Monday, family day. We just got back from Mont Tremblant. We left on Friday, a P.D. day. On Saturday Mom went cross-country skiing, while Dad, Brenna, Richard, and I went skiing at Gray Rocks. Brenna hadn't been skiing in two years but she had a lot of fun! I really enjoyed myself as well.

Sunday Dad and the boys went downhill skiing at Tremblant. All of the girls stayed home, including April!!! That made Brenna's day. It was Alanah's 10th birthday. We hung around all morning. I had homework, and a conference call at 11:00am, for my sort of job. With the effort I am going to end up putting in it might as well be a job, but I'm not getting payed. Strictly volunteer. I am on a national task group of rangers and pathfinders, that is going to plan a national camp. I am getting really excited. Right now we are just getting organized. Okay back on track.

In the afternoon we risked a walk in the local tourist trap, the village. We wandered around. I saw a pair of rubber boots that had music notes all over them. I didn't get them, but it was close. Brenna, Alanah, and Renée went swimming, while Jennifer, April and I went back to the condo. When everyone got home we had supper.

Today, we left. I think everyone had fun, playing games, skiing, and all sorts of other fun activities that I won't mention. Right now, Brenna is at synchro.

Okay so that was a really long post, but you shouldn't have skimmed it! So just to check here is a quiz, if you have to go back for any of the answers, well... I guess I'm disapointed in your lack of focus.

1. Where were we this weekend?
2. Who went downhill skiing on Sunday?
3. What is my favorite hill at Gray Rocks?
4.. Where is Brenna right now?

:P Kaitlin♫

Snowy Day

By the garage -- note snow up to Margot's knees and trailer half in snow


Forte catching "flying cow"


Forte



Link to Snow Video

San Francisco Day 8

Today was our last day in San Francisco. We decided to go to the market at the Ferry Terminal in the morning. We should have had our usual breakfast at the hotel. The Market looked great. We picked up some fresh fruit and bread, and then we went back to the hotel as Margot was very tired. After a bit of a rest we headed to the Asian Art Museum and then to Chinatown to pick up some t-shirts and a couple of gifts. It was the Autumn Moon Festival so the street was closed to traffic and we even saw a small parade. The vendors on the street were selling everything from orchids, to Chinese medicine, to DVDs. On our walk home we stopped at the Omni Hotel and made reservations for dinner at Bob's Steakhouse, a top ten rated steakhouse in the US. We had a big steak dinner and one last ride on the cable cars. A most memorable holiday in a beautiful city.

A jade piece from the Asian Art museum
An orchid vendor in Chinatown
Autumn Moon Festival Parade on the main street in Chinatown

San Francisco Day 7

Day 7 we started at Fisherman's Wharf and rented bicycles. We cycled along the coast towards Golden Gate Bridge. First stop was to do a geocache out on a point where there is a wave organ. The wave organ pipes the sounds of the ocean to a listening area. From there we peddled over the bridge and down to nearby down of Sausilito. We returned (with our bikes) on the ferry to San Francisco. Very tired, so we had supper at the hotel (nice view, mediocre food).


At the wave organ



On the bridge


Sausalito

San Francisco Day 6

Today we started at the area where Golden Gate Park meets the ocean. Walked out to the beach and saw the surfers. Lots of dogs out on the beach. We walked from there up to the cliff house (where we had lunch) and then along the coast (about 5km) until we reached the lookout areas near Golden Gate Bridge. We saw a family of sea otters and Stewart did a geocache (which is probably where he got into the poison oak). Went over to Union Street where we had a cafe style supper and strolled through the (glebe-like) shopping area. Came home and crashed.


Golden Gate Park Windmill



Ocean near Sutro Baths


View of Golden Gate Entry from Pacific Ocean

San Francisco Day 5

Day 5 we headed out for a walk through Golden Gate Park. We saw the original planners home (just from the outside), then the flower conservatory, then the De Young Museum of American Art, followed by the Japanese Tea Garden, walked around numerous gardens and in between did a few geocaches. Went to Fleur de Lys for our anniversary dinner. Had a wonderful four course dinner. When you go out to a restaurant, most times you can say "I could have made this at home", but at Fleur de Lys you would say "I could never make this meal in a million years!" A most memorable evening.


Flower Conservatory


Japanese Tea Garden



Cactus Garden in Golden Gate Park